Meteorologist spreading musical sunshine

Friday

Mar 22, 2013 at 12:01 AMMar 22, 2013 at 12:36 PM

Scattered clouds lingered in his mind as Ben Gelber hurried toward the sound of music. The meteorologist for WCMH-TV (Channel 4) had just finished the 6 p.m. forecast on a Monday and was hustling to a 7 p.m. performance by his ensemble, Friday Night Live Music, at the Upper Arlington Public Library.

Ken Gordon, The Columbus Dispatch

Scattered clouds lingered in his mind as Ben Gelber hurried toward the sound of music.

The meteorologist for WCMH-TV (Channel 4) had just finished the 6 p.m. forecast on a Monday and was hustling to a 7 p.m. performance by his ensemble, Friday Night Live Music, at the Upper Arlington Public Library.

As seven band mates warmed up, he paused near the doorway to the library theater.

“I’ve got to refocus,” he said. “It takes a little while to get in the right mindset.”

Minutes later, Gelber, 56, was seated behind a keyboard, adding his part to a rendition of Ale Brider, a traditional Yiddish folk song.

About 40 people clapped their hands and tapped their feet throughout the hourlong show of Jewish and Yiddish songs, some sacred and some folk.

“What’s funny is I’m far more nervous playing piano onstage in front of a small group than I am doing the weather in front of a large television

audience,” Gelber said.

Perhaps because he is a pro at one pursuit — with 32 years of TV weather experience — and an amateur at the other.

Gelber took piano lessons as a child and played in several groups while attending Penn State University.

“But that was about the end of the road for me (musically),” he said.

Some familiar melodies from his youth stuck in his head, though, and he mulled the idea of forming a group. In 2009, he learned that his mother, Judy, had terminal cancer.

“I decided to redouble my efforts,” he said. “I wanted it to come to fruition soon enough for her to see it.”

Relying on word-of-mouth, chance encounters and friends of friends, Gelber rounded up a group that year.

About two-thirds of the members, including Gelber, are Jewish. Most are music educators.

Judy Gelber died in 2010, having seen Friday Night Live Music play via a YouTube video.

About the time that Gelber’s mother died, his father, Norman, began showing signs of dementia.

Through the course of his father’s illness (Norman Gelber is 95 and in an assisted-living facility), Gelber said, he has learned from experts about research indicating that music can positively affect patients with memory loss.

That research inspired a new mission: Friday Night Live Music plays about once a month, often at assisted-living or senior centers and at libraries and synagogues.

Rosenberg, a music professor at Denison University in Granville, has seen the music lift the spirits of elderly people.

“They might come in and seem to be a little bit in their own world,” Rosenberg said. “But then you’ll see them all of a sudden smiling and moving to the music.”

To enhance the effect, Gelber said, he chooses songs from the early- to mid-20th century.

On Monday, the set list included songs from Fiddler on the Roof, traditional Sabbath prayers and folk tunes such as Hava Nagila.

After the concert, Gelber thanked the audience and said he was headed back to the studio for the 11 p.m. news.